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Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams

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Re: Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams

#521

Post by kj800x »

bensonn wrote: post #265

I wonder how much of Meta the corporation is a scam waiting to crumble. Hundreds of billions of dollars can make people do questionable things. -their revenue is 99% ads with more than 80% coming from FB and IG -they can only sell ads if they have a large and active user base -DAP (daily active people) is reported publicly but calculated internally -ad spending, views, and engagement are calculated by Meta's own plat…

Meta's security team seemingly does not care. My mom had her long-time Facebook account taken over during the summer. It was a credentials stuffing attack (she's now using a password manager with random passwords), and the bad actor immediately put on 2fa TOTP and signed up for some advanced security so the account couldn't be recovered without the 2fa.

We spent weeks trying to recover the account, but recovery codes weren't being sent through to her email or phone, the email and phone that has been on the account for 10+ years. The bad actor started making posts that she had cars to sell and to message her if they wanted to buy (also claiming that her sister was sick and she needed the money which is why she was selling the cars, completely untrue) Tens of her friends including her son reported the account as taken over and the posts as fraudulent. All responses from Facebook saying there was no indication of anything violating the guidelines, which is insane because all this behavior taken together screams account takeover.

Eventually, I reached out to a friend who worked at Meta who filed an internal report and we were hopeful that might actually fix it, but nothing ever came of it and when I reached out to the friend a month later he said the report was closed and he couldn't see any more details (for security reasons). If my mom meeting me in person, and me reaching out to my former teammate on a live phone call and proving my identity, and that teammate filing a report with the security team can't get it fixed, what can?

At this point, we think the original account is still up (we can't see, since the bad actor has blocked the entire family) and every new account she makes gets deleted for being a sockpuppet / ban evader.

She's devastated that someone ruined her online life like this, and that she was in Facebook groups for her career that she no longer has access to, she can no longer keep up with her friends and family. So many local businesses post their events and updates on Facebook and she has no ability to see these anymore.

We don't know what to do next. I'm so thoroughly disappointed with how Meta handled the situation. It's clearly an account takeover if someone looked at the account and the indicators. I think our next step is to write a letter to Meta legal alleging gross neglect after being presented with evidence of identity theft. Maybe that finally would get someone's attention. I'm nearly to the point where I would potentially spend thousands of dollars of my own money for a lawyer just to prove a point.

Re: Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams

#522

Post by ben_w »

toddmorey wrote: post #381
cj wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is the already-existing trend towards walled gardens will simply continue. When a public space is dangerous, people retreat into "safe" enclosed spaces. - "Never download anything unless it's from the Apple App Store" - "Never buy anything unless you're on amazon.com" - "Dont use the internet outside of ChatGPT"

The Apple App Store is full of scam apps. It’s all the disadvantages of a walled garden with none of the supposed advantages for users. In that way, the App Store itself is a scam.

Apple's Store is "Swiss cheese" security: full of holes, but still more cheese than hole.

It has some of the disadvantages, some of the advantages. It's not (and never was) perfect.

That said, at this point I am a disillusioned app developer: I no longer believe that the creation of an app is a good business idea in most cases.

Re: Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams

#523

Post by tcfhgj »

swiftcoder wrote: post #513
tcfhgj wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mastodon

That's somewhat apples and oranges. Mastodon-the-software is free-as-in-AGPL, but most instances are funded by donations. I don't know of very many instances that offer explicitly paid subscription (in order to keep their interests aligned with their customers)

so? donate

Re: Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams

#524

Post by game_the0ry »

Veritasium had a really good video on how facebook benefited from people buying legitimate (not fraudulent, click-farm) likes from fb. [1] Its over 10 years old now, but really good.

Basically, you could pay fb to boost your fb page, which is the "legitimate" way to get more reach. The problem was that click farms would like your page anyway, Why? Bc liking pages they were not paid to like would help hide fraudulent activity. So if one click farm clicked many likes on one page, that would be eady to spot as fraud, so that same click farm would like many other pages as well, ones that fb customers paid to boost and also got in front of the same click farms.

This created a dynamic where buying legitimate traffic from fb would hurt reach anyway bc the algo would key off of engagement, which would plummet bc the click farms saw the post that the page legitimately paid for. But that just incentivized the page owners to pay for more reach, thus fb would get paid more - fb had no incentive to stop this and paying fb in the first place would be worse tha not paying them at all. LAWL.

I guess the moral is -- never pay for boosting. And makes you question the quality of meta's revenue.

But the flip sides is that many companies (mine included) rely on instagram ads for revenue.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag

Re: Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams

#525

Post by strogonoff »

jimbokun wrote: post #361
strogonoff wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, in any case, the right solution is to make this business model (treating your users as a product, whether by offering free service or heavily discounted/subsidised product) simply illegal. It violates the way market is supposed to work and exploits information asymmetry—regulation against which there is plenty of precedent of. This makes the rest moot, but I will still list why I don’t think it’s like you say…

How would you write that law? So now every social network charges $0.01 per month and makes all the rest of their revenue through advertising. Would you set the minimum price for every service and outlaw advertising entirely?

The solution is probably not to require them to be paid but to make that a natural consequence.

For example,

1) disallow double-sided marketplace where primary users are monetised to a third party, or

2) require open API and interoperability, allowing users to switch providers easily, mobile phone style.

Re: Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams

#526

Post by strogonoff »

mikkupikku wrote: post #472
the_snooze wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you're not paying for the product, you are the product." It's an outdated way of looking at tech. Many classes of paid products (e.g., cars, streaming services, IoT, operating systems) double-dip into tracking and advertisement. Why would a business actually want to do the hard work of serving user needs when they can hedge their bets with ad revenue? Line must go up.

"If you're not paying for the product, you are the product." Technically, it doesn't logically follow that paying means you aren't the product.

However, it makes network effect based de-facto monopolies hell of a lot more difficult!

Re: Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams

#527

Post by squigz »

swarnie wrote: post #271
throw7 wrote: post #248

"...scammers obtain sexual images of a user, often a teenager, under false pretenses and then blackmail them – ... was becoming commonplace on Meta’s platforms" There you go U.K. OFCOM. Here's child endangerment propagated knowingly by Facebook. Don't worry, I know you won't do anything to Facebook because you "protecting" kids is pretext.

Listen throw7, Meta paid almost £30 million in tax in 2023, an effective tax rate of 12%. I'm unsure why numbers for 2024 aren't available but you'll need to speak to legal about that. If you want to throw7 that all away over some media speculation be my guest. I'll tell the NHS to fund themselves for 11 minutes next year to make up the shortfall.

30 million out of how much total tax revenue?

Re: Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams

#528

Post by comprev »

iso1631 wrote: post #506
ryandrake wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't pay because it feels like paying protection money to the mafia. "Here's an annoyance/danger we created for you. If you pay us, we'll stop doing it."

You don't see any adverts on youtube if you don't watch youtube. My local cinema charges me to watch a film. Sure I could sneak in through the fire escape. That's not paying protection money. If they say "you can watch for free if you attend our timeshare presentation first", then that's still not paying protection money. If I want a magician to entertain me at a party, it's not paying protection money. If they say "…

Does your local cinema have pre-film adverts?

Re: Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams

#529

Post by topkai22 »

Kelteseth wrote: post #9
cjonas wrote: post #8

At least 50% of the YouTube promoted videos I get are crypto currency scams where some paid actor walks you though deploying an eth contract that empties your wallet. I report every one and nothing changes :(

Same. About half of Youtube ads that I get on my AppleTV (no adblock there sadly) are now AI generated scam products.

Just checked my ad history (https://www.clrn.org/how-to-see-recently-viewed-ads-on-youtu...);

Google YouTube TV for NFL Sunday ticket Robinhood Some dog tracker thing Detergent Peloton Liberty mutual Some truck brand Foam insulation

Other than how to buy gold ads and sandy hook promise, my ads are very mild. YMMV

Re: Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams

#530

Post by lesuorac »

vkou wrote: post #425
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know but I think there is a room for compromise. If you post illegal things online and the site cannot identify you so that you can be held accountable then the site should be held accountable. As it stands people are harmed and nobody is liable so we end up in this situation.

There's a simple way to do that. Legislate a requirement for ID, the users will provide it to the platform, the platform will provide it to law enforcement when requested. Kind of like how South Korea (where you need a national ID to access digital services) is doing, or the UK is trying to do with their ID push. (And then who wants this could go have a fight with the people who don't want this.)

Why does the platform need your id?

The post was submitted by an asset (IP Address). Just send the bill to the registered owner of that asset.

We do the same thing for speeding tickets. This isn't difficult.

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